The Challenges of Royai
by RW Grimm
Summary: Drabbles written based off challenge themes on the Royai fiction lj. Genres of drabbles will vary, though I always have a soft spot for angst. T to be safe.
1. Winter Gathering

**A/n: Welcome all to my new set of drabbles. These were/are written for the Royai fanfiction livejournal community, that I thought would be nice to post here. I'm starting with #2 since it's the holidays and this theme fits more with that than the first one. Enjoy:)**

* * *

_In literature as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others._ **_Andre Maurois (1885 - 1967)_**

_**#2 Winter Gathering**_

A blanket of white falls across the city, frosting the rooftops and trees with its icy breath.

Outside the wind blows through the streets, bitter cold, chilling all to the bone. It creeps through the city, sinking into every crack and crevice it can find.

It is late, all the windows are dark, save for one.

It's lit brightly by a burning fireplace, its warm orange glow washing over the room.

In front of the fire they sit, side by side under a warm blanket.

Her head rests on his shoulder as she sighs in content.

He smiles, this is a side of her he rarely sees.

He moves closer to her, wrapping his arms around her waist, as his eyes become heavy with sleep.

Slowly the two drift into a fantasy world where there is no cold, only warmth, and only each other.

END


	2. First Night in Ishbal

**A/n: This sort of fits the New Years...this is the first day of the new year, and this drabble is about the first day in hell:)**

* * *

_**#1 First Night in Ishbal**_

When had her teddy bear been replaced with a gun?

When had the juice staining her pants become blood?

A few weeks at boot camp. A uniform thrust into her hands, and all personal items yanked from them. A bulky man yelling in her face, covering her cheeks in tobacco filled spittle. Early mornings, late nights, constant training.

Then the bus ride. A bumpy, sleepless night, on a vehicle that's dusty parts were held only together by the driver's will. The men around her were drunk, seeing it as their last night for such a thing.

Her last night before entering the war zone, and she spent it listening to off key drunkards and being jarred by trench sized potholes.

They arrived in Ishbal early that morning, the sun could just barely be seen over the mountains of sand.

It was like coming into a new world, maybe hell.

The moment her feet were off the bus, a gun was pushed into her hands, and she was shoved into a nearby pack of soldiers, their eyes sunken in, and their faces pale.

She was in the battlefield by nine am.

Orders were screamed at her, but still she could barely hear over the sounds of gunfire and bombs. But she didn't need orders, it was simple what she'd been sent here to do.

Shoot. Kill. Everyone.

In an instant it was night. The hot sun had disappeared, giving way to cold moon. The twinkling stars offered her little comfort. They seemed duller, holding less life.

Like her soul

She had killed people. Men. Women. Children.

Their blood was flecked across her face, dying her hair, and staining her clothes.

She showered for over two hours, but the feeling of the slick blood covering her wouldn't go away. Nor would the image of the people whose brains she'd splattered across their homes.

Her pillow was stained with tears, her bedside had a mat of vomit.

She didn't sleep. The bombs, and the distant screams carried on through the whole night.

The night would eventually end, giving way to a new day.

A new day of killing, of slaughtering, of tainting her soul.

She wanted her teddy bear and juice back.

But, she would find, in the days to come, another to hold on to, another to give her warmth on the cold desert nights. He would give her the fire she needed to go on.

For now though, she would listen to the symphony of death she played in.

END


	3. Save

**A/n: This was written for the third challenge on the Royai fiction lj. Instead of a theme we had to include a number of things, such as a wilted flower (I'm too tired to go check and see what the other ones were, lol). So I hope you all enjoy, it's an Ishbal drabble (gotta love pre-series stuff).:) **

**_#3 Save_**

The desert sun bakes his insides, drying them out until they're nothing but dust.

His throat cries for water but he ignores it, all his attention focused on the soldier in his arms.

The soldier with the beautiful red eyes and deadly shot.

She lays unconscious in his hold, knocked out from flying debris.

Around him other soldiers try to escape the battlefield, crawling on their hands and knees.

Some only crawl on their hands, their legs blown apart, now nothing more than bloody stumps.

He stumbles over corpses left and right, some from the enemy's side, others from his own.

He can't tell the difference, his eyes are caked in blood and sand, he can't see who is friend and who is foe.

_All he knows is they're dead._

_All dead._

The bodies are like wilted flowers, slowly wasting and rotting away until there is nothing left.

His foot hits a corpse, it's flesh sizzles and pops in the intense heat.

He recognizes the smell of charred flesh anywhere.

_It's his signature._

His grip tightens on the soldier, pulling her closer to him.

He buries her face into the crook of his shoulder.

Does he hope to protect her from the smell?

From the sight?

From everything?

He just wants her safe, that's all he cares about.

_Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust, that's what happens to all who enter hell._

As flesh peels from bodies, and their bones turn to dust, they become one with the desert.

_They become the desert._

_They become hell._

_They become nothing._

Redemption from sin is too much to ask.

His soul is damned.

He cannot gain absolution.

_But the damned can still see light._

He cannot save himself, but he can save others.

He will protect those who cannot protect themselves.

He will keep them from the pain, the death, the war.

He will be their guardian, their protector.

He'll take it one step at a time, he can be patient.

He starts with one person: the soldier in his arms.

The woman with the beautiful red eyes and deadly shot.

She will be the first one he saves.

END


End file.
